Ludvig Aberg’s rapid rise in just three months as a pro was capped Monday when the 23-year-old Swede was selected as one of the European team’s captain’s picks for the Ryder Cup against the United States outside Rome this month.
Luke Donald filled out his team by picking Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Justin Rose along with three rookies — Aberg, Sepp Straka and Nicolai Hojgaard — as Europe bids to win back the trophy after being routed by the Americans at Whistling Straits in 2021.
Straka and Hojgaard got the call ahead of Adrian Meronk in what was widely seen as Donald’s toughest decision, but it’s the presence of Aberg that will most excite European golf fans.
He turned pro in June when ranked as the world’s No. 1 amateur and after being named the best college player in the United States for a second straight year at Texas Tech. Aberg posted four top-25 finishes in his first two months on the PGA Tour, then headed back to Europe in a bid to convince Donald he deserved a Ryder Cup call-up.
Winning the European Masters in Switzerland on Sunday by reeling off four straight birdies late in the final round presented a case Donald just couldn’t ignore.
“He showed yesterday in Crans he has the potential to be one of golf’s superstars,” Donald said.
Donald noted that Aberg, who has yet to play in a major championship, played the kind of golf on the college scene that only Rahm and Hovland have produced over the last 20 years.
He said he was “blown away” by Aberg when playing alongside him for the first two rounds of the Rocket Mortgage Classic on the PGA Tour in June, when the Swede shot 65-67.
“I challenged him and said come over to Europe and play a couple of weeks,” Donald said. “It was like a walk in the park for him and obviously for someone so inexperienced, it’s so impressive.”
No player has made a quicker transition from the amateur ranks to the Ryder Cup.
“If you would have told me a couple of months ago I was going to be in these kind of conversations, I probably wouldn’t have believed you,” Aberg said.
Fleetwood narrowly missed out on automatic selection via the World Points List but was an obvious pick for his third Ryder Cup appearance. It will be the 43-year-old Rose’s sixth appearance while Lowry, another major winner, will be playing in his second straight Ryder Cup.
Straka, ranked No. 23, was rewarded for strong recent form which saw him win the John Deere Classic and tie for second at the British Open in July, then finish tied for sixth at the Tour Championship eight days ago.
Donald said the 78th-ranked Hojgaard, who is the youngest player on the team at age 22, got in on the back of three top 10s in his most recent six events.
That meant Meronk missed out despite being a consistent performer on the European tour. He won this year’s Italian Open at the Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, where the Ryder Cup is taking place.
Europe hasn’t lost a Ryder Cup on home soil since 1993 and Donald will be taking four rookies to Rome — MacIntyre also is playing in his first — in a bid to avenge that 19-9 loss two years ago.
“They are going to be strong. They are always stronger than us on paper and world rankings, and obviously they had a pretty convincing win two years ago,” Donald said. “We certainly don’t underestimate them. They are going to be extremely tough opponents. But we’ll be ready for them.”
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